Middle East Running Iranian threat news and discussion thread
- Thread starter GoldRanger
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Arch Dornan
Oh, lovely. They've sent me a mo-ron.
Talk about tweets that don't age well...
Ever since they called Trump's bluff as a pussy on Twitter nothing has been aging well for them.
The latest is what you'd see in entertainment of bumbling regimes. Their shooter is someone who graduated from the Storm trooper academy.
This is even more ironic. The US shot down an Iranian liner but now they shot down an Ukrainian liner with Iranians in it as it was going to leave Iran.
Shipmaster Sane
You have been weighed
"The Gloves are off" is a relative statement when it comes to the modern U.S., the gloves havent come off once since world war two, and thats not even counting the nuclear option.
D
Deleted member
Guest
There's nothing crazy about it. Millions of men (and more than a few women) throughout recorded and unrecorded history have voluntarily sought out war knowing full well what it entails. The simplistic, modern leftist idea that people don't want to fight unless duped or ignorant of the cost belies the true complexities of the human spirit.
Arlos
Sad Monarchist
As someone who has friends in the French foreign legion, I definitely agree with this from experience.
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Deleted member 88
Guest
The main difference I would say is that warfare has changed.
In ancient times-you fought your enemy face to face, man to man as it were sword in hand.
Now war is far more impersonal and industrialized. The reasons why people went off to war in the past don't have the same succor.
Action? Sit in a base 95% of the time, and rarely see the enemy, or if you do its shooting at them from 200 yards away. Even in conventional war-its 90% routine boredom and 10% action, which isn't near as "personable" for lack of a better term.
Adventure?depends, but more likely than not your not on campaign having dalliances with the local women, while fighting your enemy in fields of green while riding down stragglers.
This isn't to say these reasons don't exist at all, but they are far more unlikely to be experienced in the way prospective soldiers imagine.
In ancient times-you fought your enemy face to face, man to man as it were sword in hand.
Now war is far more impersonal and industrialized. The reasons why people went off to war in the past don't have the same succor.
Action? Sit in a base 95% of the time, and rarely see the enemy, or if you do its shooting at them from 200 yards away. Even in conventional war-its 90% routine boredom and 10% action, which isn't near as "personable" for lack of a better term.
Adventure?depends, but more likely than not your not on campaign having dalliances with the local women, while fighting your enemy in fields of green while riding down stragglers.
This isn't to say these reasons don't exist at all, but they are far more unlikely to be experienced in the way prospective soldiers imagine.
D
Deleted member
Guest
@Lord Invictus To some extent that's true, but seeing as I work with, work for, and supervise veterans and work closely with uniformed personnel at work, and I generally am known as one of the civilians who has a robust enough sense of humour that they can break out the military jokes when I am still in the room... Most of them are pretty comfortable with the reality of war, and saw more than enough of it up close and personal.
And then you have men like Second Lieutenant Lawrence J. Franks, who deserted from the US Army and joined the Foreign Legion to get into combat faster who was in the news some years back--and of course, perhaps the platonic ideal of all of them, Ernst Juenger, the author of In Stahlgewittern.
And then you have men like Second Lieutenant Lawrence J. Franks, who deserted from the US Army and joined the Foreign Legion to get into combat faster who was in the news some years back--and of course, perhaps the platonic ideal of all of them, Ernst Juenger, the author of In Stahlgewittern.
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Deleted member 88
Guest
Take drone strikes for example.
That's literally 9-5 war as a job.
There is no "connection" I guess? To the enemy, to the environment your in, to the action.
Compare that to a Macedonian phalangist or even a soldier of the Grand Armee in 1810.
The latter experienced war in a far more visceral and emotional way that most soldiers do now.
Also I would say nuclear weapons are the pinnacle of the concept of war impersonalized. There is little adventure in sitting at a desk hitting a red button, and no visceral pleasure in being incinerated by a nuke. As opposed to dodging an enemy's sword stroke.
That's literally 9-5 war as a job.
There is no "connection" I guess? To the enemy, to the environment your in, to the action.
Compare that to a Macedonian phalangist or even a soldier of the Grand Armee in 1810.
The latter experienced war in a far more visceral and emotional way that most soldiers do now.
Also I would say nuclear weapons are the pinnacle of the concept of war impersonalized. There is little adventure in sitting at a desk hitting a red button, and no visceral pleasure in being incinerated by a nuke. As opposed to dodging an enemy's sword stroke.
D
Deleted member
Guest
@Lord Invictus while you're correct, Armies had quartermasters even two thousand years ago, and of course, one might say the rise of special forces restored some of the reality of personalised warfare--and certainly is the field which attracts those individuals with the most innate pleasure at danger and natural aggression.
EDIT: One takeaway from this might be that @Zachowon might want to consider trying out for a posting in SOCOM.
EDIT: One takeaway from this might be that @Zachowon might want to consider trying out for a posting in SOCOM.
Shipmaster Sane
You have been weighed
We put women in the military to fill that void, don't worry.
D
Deleted member 88
Guest
Even then, the way special forces conduct war is not with the same passion as it was in the past.
For example-Seal Team Six did something like eleven mock up missions regarding Bin Laden-professionalism at its highest, but also most dispassionate.
And of course specialized operations are usually small in scale and scope.
I was just remarking on the adventure aspect-more than getting your rocks off. Going off on campaign three thousand miles away means meeting women(and people in general) you'd never meet otherwise, and once you got home wouldn't ever see again. That's fun and exciting, to use the Macedonian example-Macedonian phalangist finds a wife in say I dunno Bactria or something, while also becoming best buds with a guy from Thessaly and a mercenary from Sidon. While travelling thousands of miles, in different climates, fighting siege battles, small skirmishes, set piece battles, etc... There was adventure there.
In which case you give it a 24 hour count, then declare that because they refused to back up their claims it is rated as being false.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
Camp Followers were a thing apparently
I can be put in with JSOC and SF groups with my MOS. So not much worry there. Can be hard but I dont mind
You do know that still happens a lot on the ground right?
I know I know.
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Deleted member 88
Guest
I never claimed otherwise.
And adventures didnt happen as much as you would think in the past. They happend but over time logistics was more then here is some money go to the local village and get some food. Now you have to actually feed them for free and have them food that lasts a lot longer. Soldiers now adays can stay in the field of combat with less supplies then older armies logistically. The 82nd Airborne it to be dropped into a conflict and able to suffer 60% mortality as a unit and still not only have the moral but the supplies without needing a constant stream of it.
Technology sadly made war easier but also made being a soldier harder in some ways.
Was if often a soldier during roman times would find thier unit in the middle of an enemy area surrounded and have to fight and hold it fight thier way out and still have supplies needed to have them not starve?
I get where you are coming from. I really do. But adventures are not like what you say even in history. Even then you had mercenaries for hire which is usually what those adventures would gather on thier way.
I honestly dont know where I was going besides combat having evolved and what we do now is an adventure of its own.
You meet new people from around the world on deployments all the time.
Crenshaw providing that problematic context to it all...
Harlock
I should have expected that really
Lol no
Maybe if you're a third world tin pot dictatorship, but you don't pull that sort of thing with a nuke power. Not even the yanks are gung ho enough to let their cities get melted in a bucket of sunshine.
Hell, even a trace of air defence systems would stop most of these actions dead.
Nope. Baghdad had one of the densest air defense networks in the world (if outdated and not competently staffed, still certainly more than "a trace"). Didn't help them one bit in either war.
Syria also has a serious air defense network and half the middle east is mucking about in their airspace.